The BBC has been criticised for stereotyping girls as overemotional and manipulative, while saying that boys like to "talk about their body parts and sex", in an online audience guide to its children's programming.

The Guide to the CBBC Audience, which the BBC said was "years out of date" and had been mistakenly left on its website, uses narrowly focused gender stereotypes in a section entitled: "Girls are girls and boys are boys." The guide was removed from the website on Friday after it was brought to the corporation's attention.

A paragraph labelled "Girls: Emotionally Focused" describes them as having a "tendency towards manipulation and can be overemotional. Girls have a keen interest in fashion and enjoy listening to popular music."

Boys are said to enjoy physical challenges and have a "focus on doing, confrontation and physical strength. They often think girls of their age are annoying but like to talk about their body parts and sex."

The guide, put together by the BBC's marketing, communications and audience research department, was designed to show what CBBC audience members "care about, how they see life, what entertains them and the changes they go through growing up".

The guide came under attack on Twitter and was criticised by Justine Roberts, chief executive of Mumsnet. "It is really disappointing and unhelpful that even an organisation as forward-thinking as the BBC can still pigeonhole boys and girls into such traditional stereotypes," she said.

"We thought the days when girls were viewed as manipulative and only interested in fashion, while boys were all about physical stuff, were long gone. Thank goodness the BBC has had the sense to take it down."

The BBC said the document was at least eight years old, featuring references to the "upcoming" World Cup of 2006, and that it was not relevant. "The document under discussion is years out of date and had been mistakenly been left on our website. It has now been removed," a BBC spokeswoman said.

"At BBC Children's we believe it is important to provide all children with a range of strong role models irrespective of gender. In our documentary series My Life we've had Ballet Boys and Boxing Girls; Sarah Jane battles aliens; Helen Skelton canoed the Amazon and Stefan Gates gives cookery advice.

"We want all children to reach their full potential and make sure we avoid gender stereotyping in all our programmes."